"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" rings out from the Bell Deep in the
Odense River. And what sort of river is that? Why, every child in
Odense Town knows it well. It flows around the foot of the
gardens, from the locks to the water mill, under the wooden
bridges. Yellow water lilies grow in the river, and brown,
featherlike reeds, and the black, velvety bulrushes, so high and
so thick. Decayed old willow trees, bent and gnarled, hang far
over the water beside the monks' marsh and the pale meadows; but
a little above are the many gardens, each very different from the
next. Some have beautiful flowers and arbors as clean and neat as
dolls' houses, while some have only cabbages, and in others no
attempts at formal gardens can be seen at all, only great elder
trees stretching out and overhanging the running water, which in
places is deeper that an oar can measure.

The deepest part is right opposite the old nunnery. It is
called the Bell Deep, and it is there that the Merman lives. By
day, when the sun shines through the water, he sleeps, but on
clear, starry, or moonlit nights he comes forth. He is very old;
Grandmother has heard of him from her grandmother, she says; and
he lives a lonely life, with hardly anyone to speak to except the
big old church bell. It used to hang up in the steeple of the
church, but now no trace is left either of the steeple or of the
church itself, which used to be called St. Alban's.

"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" rang the Bell when it hung in the
steeple. But one evening, just as the sun was setting and the
Bell was in full swing, it tore loose and flew through the air,
its shining metal glowing in the red beams of the sunset.
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Now I'm going to bed!" sang the Bell,
and it flew into the deepest spot of the Odense River, which is
why that spot is now called the Bell Deep. But it found neither
sleep nor rest there, for it still rings and clangs down at the
Merman's; often it can be heard up above, through the water,
and many people say that it rings to foretell the death of
someone-but that is not the reason; no, it really rings to talk
to the Merman, who then is no longer alone.

And what stories does the Bell tell? It is so very old; it
was cast before Grandmother's grandmother was born, yet it
was scarcely more than a child compared with the Merman. He is a
quiet, odd-looking old fellow, with pants of eelskin, a scaly
coat decorated with yellow water lilies, bulrushes in his hair,
and duckweeds in his beard. He isn't exactly handsome to
look at.

It would take years and days to repeat everything the Bell
has said; it tells the same stories again and again, in great
detail, sometimes lengthening them, sometimes shortening them,
according to its mood. It tells of the olden times, those hard
and gloomy times.

Up to the tower of St. Alban's Church, where the Bell
hung, there once ascended a monk, young and handsome, but deeply
thoughtful. He gazed through the loophole out over the Odense
River. In those days its bed was broad, and the marsh was a lake.
He looked across it, and over the green rampart called "The
Nun's Hill," to the cloister beyond, where a light shone
from a nun's cell. He had known her well, and he recalled
that, and his heart beat rapidly at the thought.

"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" Yes, such are the stories the Bell
tells.

"One day the Bishop's silly manservant came up to the
tower; and when I, the Bell, cast as I am from hard and heavy
metal, swung to and fro and rang I almost crushed his head, for
he sat down right under me and played with two sticks, exactly as
if they formed a musical instrument. He sang to them, 'Here I may
dare to sing aloud what elsewhere I dare not whisper-sing of all
that is hidden behind locks and bolts. It is cold and damp there.
The rats eat people up alive! No one knows of this; no one hears
of it; even now, for the Bell is ringing so loudly, Ding-dong!
Ding-dong!'

"Then there was a king called Knud. He bowed low before
bishops and monks, but when he unjustly oppressed the people of
Vendelbo with heavy taxes and hard words, they armed themselves
with weapons and drove him away as if he had been a wild beast.
He sought refuge in this church and bolted fast the gate and
doors. I have heard tell how the furious mob surrounded the
sacred building, until the crows and ravens, and even the
jackdaws, became alarmed by the tumult. They flew up in and out
of the tower and peered down on the multitude below; they gazed
in at the church windows and shrieked out what they saw.

"King Knud knelt and prayed before the altar while his
brothers, Erik and Benedict, stood guarding him with drawn
swords. But the King's servant, the false Blake, betrayed
his master, and when those outside knew where he could be hit,
one of them hurled a stone in through the windows, and the King
lay dead! Then there were shouts and screams from the angry mob,
and cries, too, from the flocks of terrified birds, and I joined
them all. I rang and sang, 'Ding-dong! Ding-dong!'

"The Church Bell hangs high and can see far around; it is
visited by the birds and understands their language. The Wind
whispers to it through the wickets and loopholes and every little
crack, and the Wind knows all things. He hears it from the Air,
for the Air surrounds all living creatures, even enters the lungs
of humans, and hears every word and sigh. Yes, the Air knows all,
the Wind tells all, and the Church Bell understands all and peals
it forth to the whole world, 'Ding-dong! Ding-dong!'

"But all this became too much for me to hear and know; I was
no longer able to ring it all out. I became so tired and so heavy
that at last the beam from which I hung broke, and so I flew
through the glowing air down to the deepest spot of the river,
where the Merman lives in solitude and loneliness. And year in
and year out, I tell him all I have seen and all I have heard.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"

Thus it sounds from the Bell Deep in the Odense River-at
least, so my grandmother has told me.

But our schoolmaster says there's no bell ringing down
there, for there couldn't be; and there's no Merman
down there, for there aren't any Mermen. And when all the
church bells are ringing loudly, he says it's not the bells,
but that it is really the air that makes the sound! And my
grandmother told me that the Bell said the same thing; so, since
they both agree on it, it must be true. The air knows everything.
It is around us and in us; it tells of our thoughts and our
actions, and it voices them longer and farther than the Bell down
in the Odense River hollow where the Merman lives; it voices them
into the great vault of heaven itself, so far, far away, forever
and ever, until the bells of heaven ring out, "Ding-dong!
Ding-dong!"